Three Keys for Small Business Owners
Want to make the most out of your next ad campaign? Take a look at these opportunities to raise your game, find the right customers, and achieve your goals.
(1) Designing Ads That Perform
Social media users frequent their newsfeeds, finding content that piques their interest – meaning that businesses are competing with posts about friends, family, current events and more. For businesses, this means that the content you promote has to pass the “so what?” test.
Empathize with your current and potential customers and try producing content that aligns with their interests, giving people a reason to briefly pause and think. Remember to keep your message very simple and straightforward – you’ll only have their attention for a moment, so be clear about the action you’re expecting your customers to take.
Keep your content fresh.
Trying something new can help to drive better results, prevent ad fatigue, and re-engage stagnant followers. Strategic hashtag usage remains a sure-fire way to reach new audiences and build brand loyalty. Above all else, ensure that the path from newsfeed to landing page is as seamless as possible! Align your ad copy to reflect the experience that the user will have upon reaching your website. For example, if your company sells multiple products, consider a post specific to one particular product/service and ensure that the landing page is product specific as well. This helps build and maintain brand trust and credibility.
Resources to help you produce great ads:
- Facebook Ads Guide: ad specifications and success stories
- Facebook Blueprint: courses to learn more about Facebook best practices
- Facebook Creative Hub: preview your ad mockups and circulate with internal team members
- Canva: great templates to help produce the right image sizes
- Twitter Ads Guide: resources to learn more about Twitter ads
(2) Reaching the Right Audience
Before kicking off your campaign, it’s crucial to know that your ads will be delivered to the right audiences, especially when your hard-earned cash is on the line! All major social networks offer an abundance of advertising options, many of which go beyond your standard geographic/demographic targeting features. Explore interest targeting, as interests will ensure your business is being promoted to an audience that appreciates your products and positioning. As well, take some time to explore the platform’s segmentation/exclusion options, as you have the ability to load/match your existing customers and segment past site visitors – which is a fancy way of saying that you have the ability to create more personalized experiences. Of course, you’ll want to include as many potential impressions as possible, but retargeting those who – for instance – have been to your site but haven't purchased may be a surefire way to get the results you're looking for.
(3) Measurement and Optimization
Driving traffic to your site can have a significant impact on your business and marketing objectives – so long as you’re measuring the right metrics. Frequently, marketers will mistake “clicks” as a primary performance indicator, despite a significant percentage of clicks that are accidental or lacking intent. To best understand how your efforts translate to success, consider the following opportunities.
Pixels:
Placing pixels on your website will denote the events that matter most to you. Whether it’s a key page view, a form submission, an add-to-cart, or even a purchase, advertising pixels will attribute the outcomes you care about relative to the campaigns or ads you load into your advertising platform. You can ask your web developer to set up these events for you – or you can ask them to install Google Tag Manager, which is an easy and effective way to load your tags.
Selecting the Right Objective:
Run ‘conversion’ focused campaigns as opposed to ‘traffic’ campaigns. This will ensure that the dollars you invest in advertising will have the most positive impact on your business.
